Page 169 of The Next Lie

The Syndicate still wants me dead.

Knowing that gives me a direction, but direction is not enough. I need the why. I need the shape of the thing. What did my father do? What could possibly require slaughtering a family and hunting the mistake fifteen years later? How does Delia fit into it? Why did she live in their hands while I grew up in Cal’s?

Every time I ask, the answers get slippery.

That afternoon, I finally lose patience in Nash’s study at Blackwood House.

Nash is behind the desk. Ever stands near the window. Shiloh sits on the arm of a chair. Deacon leans against the bookshelves, arms crossed, looking like the physical embodiment of withheld information.

Cal is not there.

Good.

I need one argument at a time.

“What did my father do to have the Syndicate decide he needed to die?” I ask.

No one answers fast enough.

I point at all of them. “See? That. I hate that.”

“Your father worked for them,” Nash says.

“For the Syndicate.”

“Yes. El Sindicato de la Rosa.” Deacon explains.

“The Rose?” My brain is stuck on the name.

“Yes, La Rosa,” Deacon corrects.

“La Rosa.” I roll the words on my tongue, tasting them. Hating them. “So what did he do that was so awful?”

“He left,” Deacon says.

“That’s it?”

“No.” His eyes hold mine. “He took your mother with him.”

The room goes quiet in a way I don’t like. Ever shifts near the window, and Shiloh’s expression turns…almost pitying.

“My mother,” I say.

Deacon nods once. “Your father worked for the Syndicate. But your mother belonged to the bloodline. That made her…betrayal…more difficult to forgive.”

Something begins to hum in my ears, and I blink several times, rapidly, as though that might drown the sound out. Help me make sense of what I’m hearing.

Deacon is still speaking. “The Syndicate is one of the most powerful stateside cartels…in recent history. And like many cartels, it is very quietly operated by a matriarchal power structure. Do you know what that means?”

I drop to sit on the nearest seat, which happens to be Nash’s knee. He makes space for me easily, one hand coming up to stroke my back and then settle at my hip. I can’t focus on everything at once. One thing stands out.

“My mother was cartel? And the Syndicate…this is because she ran?”

“And because she took you and Delia with her.”

Something cold moves through my stomach.

Nash’s voice is flat. “Mother Superior believed your mother had no right to keep you from the life you rightfully were born into, even if you were the daughters of Hart, a white man. To punish your parents for trying to run, to take you from the Syndicate, one daughter would be returned to the Syndicate. One daughter would be—” He looks down.